SO EXCITED to see this Systems Thinking for Journalists toolkit from @heatherchaplin and @JournoDesign. Well executed and incredibly necessary.
Saved links
A saved link is not an endorsement. It's just a thing I read or thought about reading.
I must have bought 10 copies of "Just Enough Research" by @mulegirl for young designers over the last few years. Great handbook.
Two brief design posts: Embracing Design Constraints Underlines Are Beautiful Or you know, just take some off-the-shelf design system that was built by some amorphous org that never tested with users, let alone your users.
Two brief design posts: Embracing Design Constraints Underlines Are Beautiful Or you know, just take some off-the-shelf design system that was built by some amorphous org that never tested with users, let alone your users.
They're Wrong (because they aren't the same thing) but they're not wrong, because the titles are wildly conflated at most orgs. Smart(er) orgs know that job titles and roles are not the same thing:
Do you think this is true? Or should we expect someone to specialize? (It depends, I'm sure!) “If someone is asking you to do content strategy, content design, UX writing, and copywriting, he or she is asking you to be a unicorn! 🦄” — @lauxcritora
If someone tells you they have built an accessible tool-tip, they probably haven’t. Especially if there is no consideration for touch users. As always, @codingchaos has the scoop:
Early Saturday morning, reading @Abebab 's "The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity" 😻 ✨🌻 Will report on key findings a bit later 🌈
Enjoying reading in the front room, with the sounds of summer Stockholm suburbs via the open windows, yet with @craigmod’s ambient film loops eg from his recent walk in 🇯🇵() on the TV (as if @bryanboyer’s very slow movie player)
PODCAST: #ContentOps expert @rahelab shares insights on building and managing growing content functions. Plus, learn five major business drivers to address with Content Operations. #ContOps
“The running joke is that any discipline eventually figures out a way to define itself, such that all disciplines are part of it.” — @eaton on Content Strategy Insights with @LarrySwanson Too. True.
of course i missed the direct link to the episode 😳
As a remote team, one of the things we do to stay connected is play games on Friday afternoons. Sometimes, when we play , the drawings become part of our custom @SlackHQ emojis.
The open-source @health_icons project now has a Twitter account. Follow along if you'd like to see when we update with new, free icons or other news:
One of the advantages to learning CSS is that you can use it to enforce (and reinforce) accessibility in your projects. You cannot do this solely with class-based utility tooling.
I just added “Origins of AI in cybernetics” to Pangaro Cybernetics on #Vimeo:
I was looking for a short explanation of how the origin of artificial intelligence can be traced to cybernetics, and sure enough, @paulpangaro explains it terrifically in exactly 8 minutes #AI
@kevintwohy “Situated software, by contrast, doesn’t need to be personalized—it is personal from its inception.”
sudo apt update; pip install -U cryptography; sudo apt remove python3-openssl -y; sudo apt autoremove; pip3 install -U cryptography;
@bigger_room @reckoner165 The first is this
@bigger_room @reckoner165 And the third is a companion to the second
@bigger_room @reckoner165 The second is this
@johncutlefish Could it have something to do with looking at one of their privacy policies? 😳
Custom, personal tools for computers are precisely why iOS is so scary (depressing?) — it's almost impossible to build a tool like Monocle for iOS, and yet building a tool like this (independently, self-driven) is *fundamental* to computing itself:
if you stick before a url (to, like, say, a new yorker article) it does a pretty damn good job at cleaning it up and making it kindle friendly
Surprising absolutely no one: “94% of the Largest E-Commerce Sites Are Not Accessibility Compliant” Kinda like the site reporting it (I mean, fill out those blank `alt` attributes and maybe throw a `lang` on the page at least).
I mean, if you want a click-bait headline that focuses on a specific issue that not everyone can guess: “An HTML Element Potentially Worth $18M to Indiegogo Campaigns” And the site (mine) hosting that article is mostly accessible.
Pretty good rule: "If you need to do something once, use a GUI (Excel). If you need to do something ten times, use hotkeys and shortcuts. If you need to do something a hundred times, write a script (R)."
Reading the NIST proposal for identifying and mitigating bias in AI, and having *thoughts*. First, there is a lot to like here, and I'll definitely come back to that. But in this thread, I just want to vent a bit. #AIethics #ethNLP
Pssst! @halvorson is writing a new book! She's exploring the role of content leadership in orgs that excel at #CX. We talk about that and much more, including #ContentDesign, @ConfabEvents, @ButtonConf, and diversity and inclusion in #ContentStrategy.
Oh hallelujah — it looks like someone redesigned the weather underground weather viz (which is bar-none the best weather viz around) and made it more beautiful and uncoupled from IBM ownership:
I ❤️ using Stark for Chrome
@johncutlefish I recently splurged on a set of three of these and am glad I did. They are very solid, hold magnets nicely, and are useful both vertically and laying down.
@johncutlefish @satyanadella I think you’re referencing this concept:
I am selling my houseboat on its mooring in central London - just a couple of minutes from Tower Bridge & Tower Hill station. If you want a small place in the city, you'll go a long way to find a less expensive and more relaxing spot than this:
I am like BAM! and BAM! with these new podcast episodes—so excited about these conversations, and can’t release them fast enough. Next up is @jrc_collins, who has A+ insights about the various content specialities and how they fit together.
Luggage nerds rejoice! @SFBags just released a travel backpack that rivals the @tombihn Aeronaut 30. Designers of all stripes should enjoy watching the explainer video.
If you were looking for a clear, well-cited essay on the problems with accessiBe’s product — and the frightful tactics the company’s used to silence critics — here you go:
I had dismissed this bag before, much as I love my Everyday Backpack from @peakdesignltd, because I don’t want to go all the way up to 45L, but a look at the explainer video on the product page is seductive.
@miniver @SFBags @tombihn I'm excited about the Tom Bihn Techonaut release
@miniver @SFBags @tombihn I'm excited about the Tom Bihn Techonaut release
One of the very best things to come out of the mess of the Olympics is my buddy @adehogan’s perfect Everyday Olympics series of illustrations
Lots of good advice on technology and managing change from @mulegirl. Starting with the simplest system that works for people: the conversation. Focusing on value and what’s in it for people. Building relationships. Telling stories.
In new Chromium 92, PWAs can register themselves as handlers of custom URL protocols/ schemes using their installation manifest, making them all the more appy.
Somehow, some way, is a year old today. Our members — all 10,500 of you — have made this @19thnews journey possible. Will you join or renew today? Every $19 makes an enormous difference.
“There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.”
Use This Equation to Determine, Diagnose, and Repair Trust:
This 2013 classic from @cwodtke is evergreen
Great article by @beep. It earned one ⭐️ in my RSS reader.
I have seen sentence, narrative, or fill-in-the-blank forms (not Mad Libs) making an unneeded comeback. If you must build one, I gathered WCAG considerations and made a sample to show usability pitfalls: These require a lot of human testing, so budget.
Over 25 states & federal agencies hired consulting firms McKinsey, BCG & Deloitte to manage the coronavirus vaccination effort. Many of those states have vaccinated fewer people than states that spend more on public health & that did not hire consultants.
Ain’t it the truth.
Hey friends! If you’re hiring, I’m looking for my next full-time gig. I’m a designer, CSS developer, and illustrator, with strengths in creative leadership and cross-discipline collaboration. Here’s a bit about what I’m looking for and what I’m good at:
I wrote about five of the most valuable superpowers that diagrams and diagramming hold (and reveal what the acronym at the center of my new book's title stands for)
New blog post: Creative and Strategic Leadership in Design Orgs—Super-Senior ICs and the Shadow Strategy Team (3rd in a series on Emerging Shape of Design Orgs)
Here's a deep one for the music nerds.
Deep focus on content— good content, and the way it is manifested is a surefire way to better your chances of succeeding in whatever market you serve.
How Tech Companies Manipulate the Media @Mrwhosetheboss ft @MKBHD // This is an _excellent_ video on how reviews work. Correction, how reviews have *always* worked, everywhere. It just isn’t a video about how companies “manipulate” reviews.
Notes are conversations across time. Seeing tools for thought through the cybernetic lens of Pask’s Conversation Theory. Featuring provocations from @startuployalist, @tobyshorin, and @wolkenmachine.
Thoughts collated here: In short: relying on open rates to assess how engaged mailing list recipients are might be a risky strategy.
“People keep framing burnout as an individual problem. If you’re really going to try and make a dent in the problem and get to a better place, you’re going to have to not just focus on the people and fix them, you have to focus on the job conditions.”
working on lessons for a workshop on content design and structured content specifications for a CMS. Came across this excellent guide to data types. Essential to a successful CMS implementation.
NEW REPORT: We are calling for an outright ban on the use of AI & automated systems in criminal justice to ‘predict’ criminal behaviour & profile people. Our report demonstrates why, detailing the damaging impact of these systems on people across Europe➡️
Dive into our latest collection to understand how to create accessible colors and seamlessly integrate them with your design system 👇
Hannover Messe Graphic System Cool color patterns for the branding of the biggest industrial fair in the world! Perfect execution of the abstract shapes and patterns. Have a look, but also read so you don't miss info about the whole concept.
“OKRs ONLY work for empowered teams, otherwise they are a travesty” as ever, wise words from @cwodtke
I am happy to let overlay vendors spend money eating each other, but I am not happy when they use my name or my work to do so. Last week I found #UserWay did just that, so I wrote a grumpy: #UserWay just removed the page. I leave you to speculate why.
@dburka @indexaward Geranium is outstanding.
Raised an issue to look at how we could make @Drupal issues less “in your face” about code until that’s what the issue is actually about:
Psst. Underline your links in body content. After all, underlines are beautiful. Because form ever follows function. It is weird to see people fight this so fervently.
The UK Gov accessibility team got a sense that revealing fields inline on forms based on user selections was causing some issues. So they tested it. And yup. Slides: Partly due to code, partly user expectations.